During the voting process, there is an overwhelming basic requirement to provide privacy for the person voting while that person actually fills out a ballet or other confidential forms regarding the electoral process. Voter privacy is of critical importance in the election process to ensure that a voter has not been unduly influenced extraneous sources. It is common for an election to convert common public and/or private locations into polling locations by deploying a plurality of temporary voting booths. This enables a person the ability to exercise their right to vote for an individual running for a designated political office or other position of leadership, vote for their desired disposition of a proposed law, and the like at a convenient location. These polling locations are selected and temporarily configured to accommodate a large number of the voting public. Some examples of known polling places are public school gymnasiums, governmental meeting auditoriums and the like. A polling place traditionally had voting booths which provided a voting table surrounded by a privacy curtain supported by a framework, wherein the privacy curtain provides the voter with a basic level of privacy during the voting process. While this known solution to voter privacy is somewhat beneficial, there are a few drawbacks to this solution. A principle drawback is the time required to assembly and set up the actual framework of the voting booths. The increased time to construct this configuration of voting booths has proven problematic with the increased voting population, as more and more voting booths are required for each election. Another drawback to this known solution is the extra area required by the framework for each booth. This extra area/space consumption translates into less than optimal use of the floor space of the polling location. The voting booths are commonly fabricated of many separate components, thus increasing a potential of missing parts, complexity of storage, and time required for assembly.
Consequently, as the voting population has increased other types of compact and temporary voting booths have been developed. These newer voting booths provide some level of privacy and are generally portable and collapsible to some extent. However, when a polling location is being set up there are additional requirements that must be met to ensure the integrity of the electoral process. Of primary concern, is the provision for both handicapped and non-handicapped voters as required by the Americans with Disabilities Act (herein after referred to as the ADA). This act generally requires that special provisions and/or accommodations be provided for disabled or handicapped persons. Some examples of these provisions are ensuring a person in a wheelchair has access to specific areas by way of ramps instead of stairs. Providing counters, sinks, toilets that are located at a height that facilitates use by the handicapped person. In response to the ADA, there are numerous types of portable voting booths commercially available. However, these known solutions are generally distinctly and permanently configured as one of an ADA compliant device for use by handicapped voters or a standard/regular device for use by non-handicapped voters.
While these known solutions are somewhat useful, they present substantial drawbacks. The number of voting booths for each distinct form factor (one form factor for the handicapped and a second form factor for non-handicapped voters) needs to be determined well in advance of the voting date for adequate procurement. The requirement of two distinct voting booths increases the complexity and logistics of procuring, storing, and deploying the voting booths. Since the footprint of the handicapped configuration is larger than the footprint of the standard configuration, the layout becomes more complex. The overall voting booth layout at each election location needs to be considered when determining the total quantity of each of the voting booth configurations. An incorrect quantity of either voting booth configuration can cause issues when preparing a polling location. Finally, since there are two distinct devices, increased storage space is required to store the devices when not in use.
Efforts to provide a multi-configuration voting booth that overcomes the drawbacks in the prior art have not met with significant success to date. As a result, there is a need in the art for a multi-configurable, collapsible, stackable, and portable voting booth that facilitates deployment, storage, and transportation that can be efficiently used in the election process such that a voter may fill out/complete election forms in privacy. There is a further need for an improved voting both that is configurable for use both by unencumbered individuals as well as physically handicapped people.